Ernest Stapleton was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er who played first-class cricket for Derbyshire

Derbyshire County Cricket Club

Derbyshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the England and Wales domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Derbyshire...

 in 1902.

Stapleton was born in New Basford, Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...

, the son of Ernest Stapleton, a hose trimmer, and his wife Sarah.

Stapleton made a cricketing appearance for the Nottinghamshire Colts against the Yorkshire Colts in 1896. He played in his first and only first-class match for Derbyshire in the 1902 season

Derbyshire County Cricket Club in 1902

Derbyshire Country Cricket Club in 1902 was the cricket season when the English club Derbyshire had been playing for thirty-one years. It was their eighth season in the County Championship and they won five matches to finish tenth in the Championship table....

 in a match in June against Marylebone Cricket Club

Marylebone Cricket Club

Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...

. Stapleton, as an opening batsman, made just one run in the first innings and just two runs in the second. He was a right-handed batsman and played just that one match with a first class run total of 3.

Stapleton made no further first-class appearances but in 1909 played one match for Glamorgan in the Minor Counties Championship.

Stapleton died in Nottingham

Nottingham

Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...

. His brothers-in-law, John

John Gunn (cricketer)

John Richmond Gunn was an English cricketer who played in six Tests from 1901 to 1905....

 and George Gunn

George Gunn

George Gunn was an English cricketer who played in 15 Tests from 1907 to 1930. Along with other notable batsmen such as Jack Hobbs, Frank Woolley and Phil Mead, he was one of a group who, beginning their first-class careers in the Edwardian Era, seemed to go on for ever...

 played Test cricket for England, while his nephew, also named George Gunn played for Nottinghamshire for 22 years.